Melbourne close to fairytale Oklahoma win

Melbourne United's Casey Prather had the ball and his underdog team's destiny in his hands with one second left on the clock, but there would be no fairytale finish against the NBA's All-Star laden Oklahoma City Thunder.

Melbourne may have lost, but the NBL team was all smiles after pushing their NBA glamour team opponent to the brink.

"To have the opportunity to play one of the best teams in the world and to know that our league can challenge those best teams in the world - it does a lot for our reputation in the league and it does a lot for our club's reputation," United coach Dean Vickerman said.

The NBL is keen to spread its brand worldwide and the NBA, criticised for staging games involving NBA teams in every continent except Australia, has found a way to satisfy some of that demand.

The Sydney Kings played the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Monday and the Brisbane Bullets take on the Phoenix Suns in Arizona on Friday.

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Melbourne's competitive, nail-biting effort has made the NBL-NBA pre-season games a likely annual series, with talk of the Milwaukee Bucks, featuring Australians Matthew Dellavedova and Thon Maker, a potential opponent next year for an NBL team.

The Thunder were full of praise for Melbourne, who ironically featured players like Prather, Boone, Casper Ware and David Andersen who dabbled but could not maintain long term contracts in the NBA.

The Australian team was not intimidated despite facing Westbrook, who just signed a $US205 million contract extension.

United were led by Casper Ware's 20 points, six rebounds and three assists and Boone's 15 points and nine rebounds, including four offensive.

They remained close throughout the game and held leads for stretches.

United pushed the Thunder so hard coach Billy Donovan was unable to rest his starters during the pre-season game, with George (22 points) playing 39 minutes, Anthony (19 points) on the court for 31 minutes and New Zealand centre Steven Adams (12 points and 10 rebounds) logging 35 minutes.

Reigning NBA MVP Westbrook, coming back from injury, played a longer than expected 28 minutes for his nine points, seven assists and five rebounds.

"That demands a level of respect doesn't it?" Andersen said.

"Just making them play their starters."

Anthony paid tribute to Adams for his strong defence.

The big Kiwi could not resist a joke after the game by referring to the infamous 1981 underarm bowling New Zealand-Australia cricket controversy.